


Like a Hundred Thousand Cuckoo Clocks

by dimircharmer



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Boarding School, Climate change (mentioned), Gen, Kinda, Retirement, a story about bullying, a story about one's duty to interrogate the role they were given more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 00:18:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19414510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimircharmer/pseuds/dimircharmer
Summary: There are, as far as Warlock is concerned, two main problems with the New Boy, at school.The first, is that he’s a Townie, and there on a scholarship.The second, is that when Warlock gives him the opportunity for him to copy Adam’s Politics homework, Adam has the audacity to snort, and roll his eyes, and go back to his book.--Certain events Concerning a boarding school, two individuals neither angel nor devil, two eleven-year-old boys, and library fees.





	Like a Hundred Thousand Cuckoo Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> With everlasting thanks to pepsquad, without whom this work would not exist, and without whom my life would be infinitely duller and more lonely. 
> 
> Title from Birth of Serpents, by the mountain goats, which is recommended listening.  (here) 

There are, as far as Warlock is concerned, two main problems with the New Boy, at school.

The first, is that he’s a Townie, and there on a _scholarship_ [1]

The second, is that when Warlock gives him the opportunity for him to copy Adam’s Politics homework, Adam has the audacity to snort, and roll his eyes, and go back to his book. 

“ _Excuse_ me,” Warlock says, grabbing the top of the book and pulling it down. “I’m _talking_ to you.”

“Well. _I'm_ not interested in listening,” Adam says, “So. S’far as I see it, you’ve got two choices. Either get more interesting, or talk somewhere else.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Warlock says again, so offended he can barely speak

“No, I don’t think I will,” Adam says, “I don’t think you were going to say anything more interesting than what I’m reading, anyway.”

“I _was_ ,” Warlock says, “Going to offer you the opportunity to do my Pols homework for me. Offer you a _favour_.”

Adam doesn’t respond. Warlock decides to explain the favour anyway.

“The chance to get on my good side! That’s a very valuable side to have you know! I am going to be on my father’s staff, you know, and then take his place, someday.”

“You just want to be your dad?” Adam says, shutting his book on his finger, and properly looking at Warlock for the first time, “Whatever for? Don’t you know all grownups are stupid?”

“No they’re- My dad isn’t! He’s powerful! What do _you_ want to be?” 

“Not my dad,” Adam says, with some distaste, “and not yours either, by the sounds of things. Nothing gets done, if we all just grow up to be our fathers, you know.”

“Then let me copy your pols homework or I’ll throw you in the pond.”

“No.”

“What could you _possibly_ be reading that’s more interesting than doing one page of pols homework?”

“ ‘s a book about shipwrecked sailors. I think it’s bril. There’s another copy in the library if you want to check it out,” Adam says, and turns the page, looking fully away from Warlock

“Why would you be interested in that?” Warlock says, in quite the same tones he used when he asked why Tarrion touched the slug he found on his window

“Why not?” Adam says, “Also, I’m trying to work out which of them are cannibals and just lied about it when they got back later.”

Warlock’s standard issue, 11-year-old boy instincts for gruesome and disgusting stuff to share gleefully with his friends wars with the pretension not even two well-meaning guardians could stamp out of him.

“Why would you want to know about that sort of thing?” he eventually settles on.

“Well with the Kraken out there in the Pacific, you know,” Adam says, “got me thinking.”

“You’re _mad_ ,” Warlock concludes, with the certainty that comes only with youth and buckets of money in combination, “You’re completely off, no wonder you’re such an idiot.”

“All the better for you to not hang out with, then.” Adam says, “Go on. Piss off.”

“No one,” Warlock says, snatching the book from his hands, “Can tell _me_ to piss off.”

Once he’s done it, once the book, with its crinkly cellophane library cover, and old bookmark is in his hands.

Warlock intuits he has made a Mistake. 

Adam raises his eyebrows at him.

It’s a very pedestrian eyebrow raise. 

Common, even.

There’s no reason for it to sound like the sound of a shotgun shell being chambered. 

\--

Less than seventy miles away, but more than fifty, a person who is almost a demon and not quite a man, bolts upright so suddenly, he dents the bumper of a 1956 Corvette.

“ _Aphrizale,_ ” the man who is not a man calls, pushing himself out from underneath the car, “He’s doing it again!”

“Let him sort it out!” Another man who is not a man calls back, “We can’t swoop in every time! Look, it’s already clearing up-”

\--

Warlock drops the book.

It tumbles safely to the grass, where Adam picks it up, and brushes the dirt off of it, standing as he does. 

“‘S a library book,” Adam chides, and Warlock’s heart thunders in his chest. “I have to be careful with it.”

Adam, for an instant, had looked like a man with a fanatic army at his back. Had looked like a warlord who had retired, allegedly, behind nests and nests of machine guns and barbed wire. Who had settled down to read books and enjoy his wealth and would pick up a rifle and initiate war again at any time if any more than mildly inconvenienced.

(Warlock has met several of these warlords. Some of them were friends with his father. Many of them in the Senate.)

He now looks merely 11. To a great many adults, this was scarier, but to Warlock, he merely looked lifesized again.

“You’re checking that sort of book out from the _library_ ?” Warlock says, “Is that even _allowed_?”

“ ‘s history, innit?” Adam says, tucking it back into a bag that Warlock could see was nearly overflowing with books, “Makes it educational. Library has all sorts.”

“Anything _actually_ interesting?” Warlock asks, “Or just shipwrecks and wars and old dead people’s saggy faces?”

“Read a book about glaciers, last week,” Adam offers, “Of course, it was written _ages_ ago, in nineteen hundred and something or other. Told me they’d all be around for another ten thousand years, and we all know _that’s_ not true.” 

Warlock rolls his eyes “Are you- I mean do you _actually_ have any idea what’s interesting, or are you a _complete_ nerd.”

“No, I’m very boring,” Adam says, fishing in his pocket for his phone, “Now go away.”

“Do you really not know who I am?” Warlock says, “Do you _really_ not know?”

“I know who you are,” Adam says, “You think you can get away with whatever you want because your dad’s an ambassador, and his hardest job is picking up the phone at three in the morning and starting a war on someone else’s say so.”

Warlock shoves him back against the tree on the lawn, where Adam had been sitting, and then more recently, standing. 

“You’ve got some _nerve_ ,” he snarls, “My dad _pays_ for your scholarship, he could buy the whole _town_ if he wanted-”

“ _Don’t,_ ” intones Adam, “ _even think about touching Taddfeild.”_ [2]

In the village, nearby, three dogs (a cocker spaniel, an Alaskan Eskimo, and a Shitzu) start howling in chorus. Slightly more than fifty miles away, but less than seventy, a person who is almost a man bangs his head on a bumper for the second time in fifteen minutes. 

\--

Anthony Crowley rolls out from underneath the Corvette, groaning and gripping his head. [3]

“Aziraphale!” He calls, “It’s not _going away!”_

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, peering at what used to be a sunny day, and now was looking rather a lot more like a tornado, “I’d quite noticed,” 

“We need to get down to the bloody school again, get in the car!” Crowley says, wrenching open the door 

“Does it have an _engine_ yet?” Aziraphale asks, still staring at the sky

“What? What does that matter! Get in!” 

\--

“Don’t Touch Me.” Adam says. 

Warlock’s ears pop. The wind is whipping his hair, too long, into his face. (He swore there wasn’t wind just a few minutes ago.)

“Why shouldn’t I?” Warlock asks, hands fisted in the lapels of Adam’s wrinkled school jacket, faces close

“Well, it’s against the rules, for one thing.” Adam says.

“You think this place cares if I break the _rules?_ ” Warlock asks 

“I used to be like that,” Adam says, “Although, I’ve increasingly found rules helpful myself. Which I think was half the point of sending me here, honestly. Get your hands off of me.” [4][4]

Warlock tastes copper.

“Sure.” He says, shoving Adam back against the tree, and yanking the book from his hands, “But I’ll be keeping this.”

“I’m only partway done that,” Adam says, making no attempt to fix his wrinkled jacket “It’s due on Tuesday.”

In the village down the way, three dogs gradually stop howling.

“I guess you’ll have to scrounge up the pound to pay the late fee.” Warlock sneers, and sets off across the lawn.

“It’s only ten pence a day,” Adam calls after him, “You planning to keep it more than a week?” 

Warlock flips him off over his shoulder. 

“I was enjoying that!” Adam says, a little put-out, He frowns at Warlock, setting off down the slope back to the school. “What a little prick.”

\--

Now only forty miles from the school, a vintage Corvette pulls to a stop that sends a dust plume nearly a hundred meters into the air.

Two figures get out, and watch as the unexpected stormclouds dissipate. 

Crowley smacks his lips

“At least that’s the sulfur out of the air, then.”

“He’s alright then?” Aziraphale says.

“Quite.” 

“Should we- tell someone? Some human, maybe?” Aziraphale asks, peering up at the puffy, picturesque clouds

“I don’t think we’ve ever managed it without completely cocking it up,” Crowley says, “Maybe better to just let it all- sort itself out.”

“Right enough,” Aziraphale says, “I was always rubbish with children anyway. Stubborn little things.”

“Yes well,” Crowley says, “I think that both of them really just turned out- near normal, despite our best efforts.”

“Oh- Oh _no_.” Aziraphale says 

“What, wait, what?” Crowley asks, “Is something- do you feel something is something still-”

“No,” Aziraphale says, “It’s just- I had soufflés, in the oven, they’ll have fallen by now, oh _no_ ,”

“Well, I’m sorry I got a little worked up about the status of a elevan-year-old boy who continues to happen to be the Antichrist!” Crowley says, “Your _soufflés_ , honestly.”

“Would you just drive us back?” Aziraphale says, “It’s going to be such a _bother_ to get all the smoke out.”

Crowley hesitates another moment, leaning on the hood of the car, looking down at the school in the distance.

“Still it makes you think- I mean, do we need to be this close? To him? Them?”

“The weather’s good for your garden.” 

“ _My_ garden,” Crowley says, “ _I_ didn’t plant those bloody marigolds.” [5]

“Well, the woman down the way said they’d keep away the pests. She brought a cobbler to welcome us, remember?”

“I _remember,_ ” Crowley snaps. And then- “Do you think anyone brought the boys a cobbler, in September?”

“Why would they?” Aziraphale says, “They’re just children, after all.”

“I suppose.” Crowley says, and nothing else, until Aziraphale comes around to the front of the car to lean on the front hood himself. 

“Did we fuck it up?” Crowly asks quietly, “Not- not Adam, we did well as we could by him, excepting the one attempted murder, but- is it really okay for us to be doing _nothing_ now?”

“I don’t understand how anyone could possibly know,” Aziraphale says, knocking their elbows together gently, “I think we have to follow their lead now.”

“What, _humans?”_ Crowley asks

“Who else?” Aziraphale says, “they’ve seemed to have done a more impressive job than we have. In both directions, to be frank.”

“Terrible role models,” Crowley says

“The best ones usually are,” Aziraphale agrees, “Once we get bored- something to think about, perhaps.”

“Mm.” Crowley says. “Maybe. Or maybe we should just stay out of it. Humans always did their worst work when I was around.”

“They did some of their worst without you,” Aziraphale says, “and some of their best without me. I think we were rather immaterial to the whole ineffable project, really.”

“They’ll sort themselves out.” Crowley says firmly, “The last thing I want is to start _meddling_ again.” 

“Oh- no not meddling.” Aziraphale says, “Participating. Someday.” 

“Oh.” Crowley says, and peers down at the school again, to avoid looking at his companion. “Yeah. Someday. I mean, maybe.”

\--

Two nearly men look down at a school that is full of someday-men, and the world continues to spin. The next week, on Monday evening, a book is returned to the library at The Terishire Acadamy School For Boys. The next day, it is checked out again, so the person previously reading it could finish it. I will leave who did the checking, and the subsequent reading, up to you. Some things, after all, are better left as mysteries. 

\--

**Author's Note:**

> 1 This, the other boys at the boarding school assure each other, is something Bad, to be mocked. They tell each other this most firmly when Adam pops down to the village on Sunday afternoons for tea, and when they can see him tearing around the orchard beyond the walls with his dog and his boring friends.[return to text]
> 
> 2 Warlock did not know the word Intone, but it seemed to spring into his mind at the way Adam spoke. Quite a frightening thing, for an 11-year-old, learning when you didn’t mean to. [return to text]
> 
> 3 The reason he is not a demon, and instead, mostly a Man, is that he has retired. (this is a situation where the company and the employe both attempted to get the other to leave at the same time, which is to say, he doesn’t have a pension or a nice watch, but a mutually beneficial agreement not to destroy one another.) And in his retirement, has taken up restoring collectors cars. He even sells them, when he’s done. They leave his care with somewhat more personality than other cars on the market, but buyers of antique cars rather expect their salesman to run their hands lovingly across the car’s curves and say things like “She’s been cooped up too long, you need to run her on big, wide-open country roads if you want her to be happy.”[return to text]
> 
> 4 There had been quite a lot of excitement among the boys of Terishire Academy, early on, when they first learned that the boy joining them was a Rule Breaker in the local town. They later discovered that what he was in trouble for was sneaking into restricted military areas, and the shine had worn off fairly quickly. Children of diplomats rather regarded that sort of thing the way most children regarded sneaking an extra cookie from the jar. [return to text]
> 
> 5 what Crowley has planted, in fact, has consisted entirely of what he was used to. Which is to say, tropical houseplants that have no business growing in England. But Crowley doesn’t know that, and neither do the plants. The marigolds do help, but mostly because crossing the barrier between the divine flowers and the infernally-interfered with houseplants is enough to give most insects a heart attack. [return to text]


End file.
